


And Baby Makes Three.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Series: Accidental Marriage Acquisition [3]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Intentional Child Acquisition, Kid Fic, M/M, POV Ivan Vorpatril, Time Period: Reign of Gregor Vorbarra, Trope Bingo Round 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24544936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: Ivan Vorpatril, Lord Consort of Barrayar, finds himself with a small problem. A small problem named Leo.
Relationships: Ivan Vorpatril/Gregor Vorbarra
Series: Accidental Marriage Acquisition [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1453534
Comments: 29
Kudos: 89
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	And Baby Makes Three.

**Author's Note:**

> Bingo! Fill for my Kid Fic square for Trope Bingo.

1.

Leo Vorbarra is born on a bright spring day and it immediately ruins Ivan's life forever. How is he supposed to continue on as he has, the carefree husband of the very important Emperor of Barrayar, when there's a tiny tiny baby looking up at him like Ivan's got to protect him from the galaxy?

Ivan's spent two decades ducking responsibility. No one's ever been able to give it to him before. Even marrying Gregor had only dusted his shoulders with it, since Gregor knows better than to rely on Ivan for much. But Leo doesn't have any experience with Ivan yet. For all Leo knows, Ivan is a reliable sort of man, the kind who can be trusted to make sure no one storms the Residence and takes away Leo's stuffed octopus.

Oh no. This is terrible.

Ivan heaves a deep sigh and cradles Leo closer. "I suppose it's too late to put him back in the replicator?"

The very-highly-vetted replicator techs look at each other in concern, but Gregor only touches Leo's head with gentle fingers. "Much too late," he says.

Well, all right. Ivan supposes he can live with that.

2.

Ivan absolutely cannot live with that.

The Residence goes into lockdown all the time. It's a normal part of Ivan's life. Half the time, he's not even in the Residence when it happens and he has to cool his heels in Vorhartung or at the opera or, once, a seaside resort pining desperately for an umbrella. Ivan's pretty good at it by now. He knows how it all works.

And then he's locked away in a small room and Leo is in with him, and there's four different people locked in there with him who know how to handle childcare and are always very skeptical of Ivan's attempts to do anything child-related, but Leo's crying, and Ivan has a headache, and Leo won't stop crying, and then Ivan realizes that Gregor is never going to come and save him from this. Because Gregor and Leo are never going to get locked in together in the same room. That Gregor has abandoned him to soothe their son through security nightmares for the rest of eternity.

There are years and years ahead of Ivan of being stuck in small places with a screaming child. And to think Ivan had always thought the worst lockdowns were when he was with _Miles_.

Wait, no, now that he thinks about it, yeah, the ones with Miles were worse. Leo's too young to be hyperactive yet. All he can do is elbow Ivan in the face when Ivan tries to pick him up. That's, on reflection, a lot better than Miles.

...Oh, no. What if Leo grows up to take after Miles?

Fuck. No. That cannot be allowed to happen. Ivan is going to have to supervise Miles very, very carefully with Leo. Miles cannot be allowed to be a role model. No. Ivan is never letting his son think running off to go admiral a mercenary fleet is ever a good idea. Ivan's too young for that kind of stress.

When the door finally opens and the armsmen come in to look over Leo, Ivan brushes by them to, in order, find Gregor outside, grab Gregor by the tunic, try to shake him as hard as he can, and say "our son is not allowed alone with bad influences."

"You're not a bad influence," Gregor starts, and Ivan has no idea what he's talking about.

"Not me! Miles!"

Gregor looks around Ivan as if he could see Miles hiding in the safe room. Miles is, of course, not in the safe room. "I see," he says.

He does not see. Ivan lowers his voice and pokes Gregor in the arm. "Gregor," he says very seriously. "Imagine being locked in a room for hours with Miles Vorkosigan."

Ivan watches Gregor clearly imagine this.

"Do you see what I mean?" Ivan asks.

Gregor gives Ivan a very patient look. "Ivan, you could have mentioned you were claustrophobic."

Ivan is not claustrophobic. Ivan is having very reasonable concerns. "I'm not claustrophobic, I'm concerned for the future of the Imperium."

The future of the Imperium is carried out of the safe room by his head nurse, who is ten years older than Ivan's mother and always makes Ivan feel like he's five years old and getting sticky hand prints on the wallpaper, so of course Ivan trusts her beyond words. Unlike the last four hours, Leo is not screaming his tiny lungs out.

As usual, Gregor's attention is caught entirely by his son and his face goes all soft and longing. It's really hard to resent Gregor for not having to deal with a baby when it's so clear that Gregor would have preferred dealing with the baby. And it's not like _Ivan_ wants to be the one dealing with the emergency.

Gregor asks, "Ivan, would you prefer to be locked in a safe room that _didn't_ have Leo in it?" 

As the horror sinks in to Ivan, he realizes he's holding onto Gregor's arm so hard, he'd be ripping any inferior fabric. "Don't you dare," Ivan orders his Emperor.

Gregor nods like Ivan just made any kind of sense. Of course Gregor wouldn't do that to him. What was Ivan even thinking? He's not sure. Armsman Burayev is looking at Ivan like marital fights can become his problem if Ivan actually bruises the Emperor. That's fair. That's reasonable. And it's not like he's fighting with Gregor. Gregor's not gonna take his son away. Gregor's not an asshole.

"Vorbohn can wait," Gregor says inexplicably and then they're in Leo's playroom, Gregor on the armchair with Leo in his arms, and Ivan on the couch with his feet hanging over the armrest. There's half a castle built on the floor, because Leo can't build them yet, but he loves knocking them over. Ivan understands the urge to destroy obstacles. Leo's too young to learn yet how to go around them. That's fine. Ivan can teach him that. Gregor has to teach statecraft and politics and important things. Ivan will teach their son how to deal with strong personalities by avoiding them. It was a skill that served Ivan pretty well until he tripped and found himself married to the Emperor.

So, really, he supposes, it didn't serve him well at all.

3.

They celebrate Leo's first birthday with a carefully-curated selection of their closest friends, and also all the Counts and Ministers and the entirety of the General Staff, and also twelve ambassadors since the Betan ambassador knew Aunt Cordelia way back when, and they couldn't just invite one.

In other words, it's about a tenth the size of Gregor's last Birthday and ten times the size of any birthday party Ivan had ever had before he found himself in the Vorbarra family.

Lady Polina had assured Ivan that they couldn't start Leo's parties too big or there'd be nowhere to go from there. Ivan had nodded and acted like he thought the future escalation of ceremony was the problem instead of his real concern, which was Leo losing all patience for old men and vomiting on them. Leo has already compiled a long list of Counts he's vomited on; only Uncle Aral seemed pleased by it. But that was Uncle Aral. No one other than him was interested in Leo as a baby. Everyone else was interested in him as Gregor's heir.

Ivan takes a discerning look at the final guest list. He's saved from being the youngest adult at the party by the fact that the new Countess Vorvolk was born twelve days after he was.

So while Lady Polina and her office are ably handling the Crown Prince's Birthday, Ivan and Gregor have the equally-important task of planning Leo's birthday. Ivan hadn't been invited to the Birthday until he was in prep school, but he's gone to Gregor's birthday every year since he was born. Aunt Cordelia hands them a checklist that they have to follow. It's not proper Vorbarra tradition until Gregor hands it down to his son, so Gregor's taking it much more seriously than Ivan is. As far as Ivan's concerned, it's a party for a kid who just learned to crawl. As far as Gregor's concerned, it's something his mother started and Aunt Cordelia continued, and it's important to do it right.

From Gregor's perspective, doing it right means figuring out who Leo's friends will be for the rest of his life.

Ivan's barely being hyperbolic. Barely.

For Ivan, birthday parties were events where his mother invited two token playmates for him and the rest of the guests were relatives and politics. Miles and Gregor both counted as relatives _and_ politics. The token playmates had been an ever-shifting morass of childhood allegiances. Ivan had gone through best friends faster than Gregor has gone through Ministers of Agriculture. So Ivan doesn't place too much importance in what other little kids are invited to Leo's party. As far as he's concerned, kids at that age are mostly interchangeable. It's only the relatives that Leo can't shake off if he doesn't like them.

And meanwhile Gregor has one close friend and they've been friends since Henri Vorvolk shoved his hand in Gregor's mouth when Henri was a toddler.

"It's different for Vorbarras," Ivan's mother says when Ivan complains to her about how seriously Gregor's taking this. It's not going to war, it's just a game of politics involving kids who can't walk yet. It's important to the adults, but Leo won't care if they invite Paul Vorlakial or Paul Vorfolse or Paul The Betan Explorer Plush Cat. It doesn't matter.

"I know everything Gregor does is complicated," Ivan says, because he does. "I just don't understand why Gregor _cares_ ," he adds, because he doesn't.

Ivan's mother is never impressed with Ivan's grasp of politics and she seems even less impressed by his grasp of childhood friendships. "Early childhood is the only chance Leo has to make friends who don't know who he is and without having to worry about their motives," she explains, like Ivan has ever had a friend in his life whose motives his mother didn't worry over. It's a good thing he ended up married to Gregor, whose motives she already knows.

"That won't stop them from betraying him later," Ivan says.

"Of course not," Ivan's mother sniffs. "You may not have taken proper advantage of it when it was your turn, but I'm sure my grandson will show better judgment."

Leo still thinks Ivan's nose might come off if he pulls hard enough. Leo also thinks he can fly. But Ivan's mother is the proudest grandmother and Ivan knows what's good for him. "Yes, mama," he says.

The party goes normally. Leo shows minimal interest in the other children. The other children show minimal interest in Leo. The parents are disappointed about the lack of currying Imperial favor or are too busy currying Imperial favor themselves with Gregor. All in all, pretty boring. All in all, exactly like Ivan's own birthday parties. And the official party is exactly like Gregor's. So, really, a pretty normal Vorbarra childhood, Ivan is given to understand.

Leo makes no new friends at his party. Ivan is probably a bad parent for thinking that means he wins.

4.

Leo learns to walk, then how to run, and then how to give Ivan a heart attack. All his clothes are trackable, but Leo likes taking them off and it's a war the adults haven't won yet.

The first time the Residence goes into lockdown because they misplaced the Crown Prince, it takes all of five minutes to find him sitting in the middle of the hallway, crying from the noise. Ivan is prepared for his genes to be blamed for that, but then he sees Gregor look sheepish and is abruptly reminded that for Gregor's first five years of life, Ivan hadn't even been born yet. He'd never had any chance of witnessing Gregor being anything other than completely used to the realities of his world.

Ivan says to Gregor, "bring back memories?"

Gregor looks rueful. "Unfortunately, yes." He bends down to scoop their son up into his arms, murmuring comforting things. Leo looks skeptically around at everyone, gives one last siren bawl, and then shuts up. Within five minutes, Leo's asleep against Gregor's chest.

Ivan wishes he could record forever the look on Gregor's face, but all the security cameras here go directly to Commander Osmond, and there's no way Ivan could ask him for the recording without Gregor knowing all about it and never letting him live it down.

5.

Leo turns three and Ivan looks at Gregor and Gregor looks at Ivan and one of them says, "weren't we going to space them out every three years or so?" And they look at Leo.

"A four year gap isn't a bad idea," Ivan suggests. Ivan's too young to have grey hair, but does Leo care? He does not. And they've got uterine replicators. In theory, they've got all the time in the world.

Gregor looks grim. "The longer we put it off, the more it'll backfire on us later," he says, and that's why he's the Emperor. It's the ability to make the hard decisions.

Ivan sighs. "Okay. Let's start on Valentina, then."

**Author's Note:**

> [this post on dreamwidth](https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1127408.html); [this post on tumblr](https://lannamichaels.tumblr.com/post/620033469571072000/and-baby-makes-three-2233-words-by-lanna)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Vorkosiverse DVD Commentaries.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14447472) by [Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels)




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